Meredith Bond's books straddle that beautiful line
between historical romance and fantasy. An award-winning author, she writes
traditional Regency romances, medieval Arthurian romances, and Regency romances
with a touch of magic. Learn more about Meredith and her books at her website.
You think your boss is bad?
All my life I
have wanted nothing more than to serve The People. Politics has been my
passion—from the time I ran for class president in elementary school right on
through to when I was president of the student government at my university.
Getting a permanent job on the Hill was a dream come true.
I’d worked for
Congressman Tom Whitmeyer from the time I was in high school. I began as an unpaid
intern and then continued straight through college. When he offered me a full-time,
permanent job after I graduated, I was thrilled. The man was my teacher, my
mentor. I admired everything about him from his politics to his lovely wife,
who I met when they came over to my parents’ house one Labor Day for a
barbecue.
I honestly
thought I had the greatest mentor and a dream job that would take me exactly
where I wanted to go in life.
Boy, was I
wrong!
People, don’t
get fooled. Don’t get lulled into believing that your boss admires and respects
you as much as you do him or her. Don’t fall into the trap I fell into. You are
nothing to your boss but a means to an end. A boss will use you for all you’re
worth.
I found this
out on the day I was betrayed.
I should have
gotten out right then and there. I should have said no, but he had me and he
knew it.
Just as I have
always wanted to be in politics, I have always been afraid of falling. High
places aren’t really a problem—I can fly in a plane and even look out a small
window from the top of a skyscraper. No,
I’m afraid of large windows. Windows that open. Balconies. Anywhere there is
the slightest possibility of falling.
On one
beautiful spring day, at the height of cherry blossom season in DC, my boss
walked me into an 18th-floor
apartment that had one wall that was all windows. It was mine, he said. Yes, he
was offering me this amazing apartment to rent and even offered to pay half!
To anyone else
this would have been a dream come true. But there were two small catches:
1) I couldn’t
even walk into the place without being terrified of falling out of those
windows (or over the balcony just outside of them).
2) It wasn’t
just going to be my apartment. It was also going to be his pied-a-terre!
Yes, the one
catch that he brushed off as if it was nothing was the fact that I would have
to get out at a moment’s notice for the night while he used the place to meet
his mistress.
Everything I’d
ever thought of my boss—wonderful man, strong upstanding servant of The People,
yadda, yadda,
yadda—was gone. Flown right out of those
enormous windows, and there was nothing I could do about it.
I told him I
couldn’t do it.
He threatened
to destroy my career in politics forever if I didn’t.
I did it.
What else could I do?
The story does
have a happy ending, but it has nothing to do with my boss.
It was only
his insistence that I take this apartment that led to me meeting David—a lawyer
with the public defender’s office and hypnotist for fun (and the man with whom I
will be spending the rest of my very happy life, although getting to that point
wasn’t exactly easy or painless, I can assure you!).
It was only
because of my boss’s insistence that I allowed myself to be hypnotized and
learned that I’d lived another life—and
that David had been a part of it.
So, while my
story has a good outcome, I warn you not to count on that.
Admire your
boss. Respect him or her. But be wary and be sure to protect yourself. Be ready
to run—or quit—at the first unreasonable demand. And most of all—be strong!
I wasn’t, and
I nearly paid the ultimate price for my weakness.
Falling
In another time…
Boundless blue
skies. Oblivion. The pull of the sky through the wall of windows in Erin
Freyn’s new apartment is as enticing as it is disturbing. It seems to call her
to step out, to let go, to surrender herself into its terrifying embrace. But
when she turns to a hypnotist for help, she never dreams it will uncover
long-hidden secrets – of ageless magic and forbidden romance.
In another place…
David Elder is
trying to live up to the memory of his brother, who died while working with
inner-city kids. He couldn’t
save his brother, but perhaps with his magic he can save others. When he
hypnotizes Erin to seek a cure for her fears, they discover instead an ancient
connection. In a past life, he was a medieval knight and her illicit lover…
before things went very wrong.
Today…
Fate has given
them a second chance. Will they take it and finally find happiness, or will
they be doomed to replay history yet again?
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